


Collagen

by characterizer



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxiety, Chronic Fatigue, Chronic Pain, EDs, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Gen, Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Insomnia, M/M, On Indefinite Hiatus, Pre-Bite Peter Parker, Tags will be added as they become relevant, changed rating to teen bc theyre teens and they say fuck a lot, hEDS, just assume that all of the avengers and everyone from homecoming is there, ogh, theres light at the end of this tunnel tho I can see myself continuing this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-07-15 05:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16056911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/characterizer/pseuds/characterizer
Summary: His chromosomes are filled with that shitty joint juice and bones hurty, but he’s spiderman so he’ll deal(An au where Peter has hEDS)[ON INDEFINITE HIATUS SEE CHAPTER 4 FOR DETAILS]





	1. A Good Day

6:30 AM; wake up reluctantly and stare at the ceiling while quietly shimmying around trying to get that  _ Goddamn hip  _ back in place, get out of bed at 6:35. Shower for 15 minutes and try not to jostle his knees or hips too suddenly while he does it; pop his shoulder or elbows back in once or twice. It’s the morning, everything is harder in the morning. He swallows down his pain when accidentally hitting his shin stepping out of the bathtub, a bruise will certainly be there not long from now. 

 

He shuffles across the hallway to his room and proceeds to tape his shoulders carefully and precisely, minimizing shoulder subluxes and dislocations makes for a tremendously easier day on his end. Peter is a student, he wears a backpack, shoulders can be a big problem for him. There’s still bruises on his shoulders from yesterday, and some scarring already there from all the years of packing a bag around. Clothes come on over the tape, simple graphic sweater he’s had since he was 13 that has Naruto on it, dark jeans, socks, then hinged leg braces. Both legs. After that it’s figure eight finger braces for his problem fingers (thumb, ring, middle), and a quick consideration for if he should put one on his index for his right hand or leave it. He puts one on his right index. Second knuckle. Glasses, never forget glasses. Put on his shoes last because he can’t tie them unless he has his finger braces on. Inhaler in backpack, never forget that.

Leave his room with backpack carefully in tow, set it by a table leg and dig through the fridge drawer for a yogurt and put toast in the toaster. Take his anxiety meds with water. Sit down at the table with yogurt, spoon, and buttered toast in a chair that keeps his knees and hips level. 7:16. He eats at a pace that assures he won’t be vomiting it back up any time soon, chases it all with water and is out of the apartment by 7:27. His mornings and days are regimented, he knows this. He eats the same thing every morning because it’s the meal that gives him the least abdominal pain and acid reflux, wears his tape and braces every day because it keeps his joints from popping out in painful and new ways. Everything he does is to minimize the pain he experiences near constantly, and that’s just fine for him at home. 

 

Yet outside of home, a regiment sucks. It reminds him that he can’t walk up a flight of stairs without pain, or sit still for too long without pain, or do anything without pain and trying to avoid it. His walk to the bus stop is uneventful, there’s no hip or knee pop outs in the two blocks of walking it takes to get there.  No ankle rolls (thank God), and his elbow only subluxes a little when he adjusts his backpack. Normal, uneventful, for a good day at least. The bus ride is uneventful too, he spends it with earbuds in and smiles a little bit when Ned sends a good morning text. He smiles a little bigger when Harry sends one too. They do this every morning because they know his mornings are generally started alone, May leaves for work around 5:30 AM, and they want to make sure he didn’t roll an ankle and fall down the stairs leaving his apartment complex or something. Peter is especially clumsy due to his joints, and that’s happened before. 

 

His fatigue isn’t coming through especially bad today, he still feels tired but he has a good amount of spoons to dedicate to school. Today is a  _ good  _ day then; a little giddy feeling tickles in his chest. There hasn’t been a truly good day for Peter in a while. He grins a little bit and sends both Harry and Ned replies back, both of them being a variation of the same  _ hey!! :),  _ he really wants them to know that he’s feeling good right now. The bus nears Midtown before squealing to a stop in front of the large school building and front steps. Peter gets up and is careful with his elbows and shoulders while putting on his backpack, and he walks through and out of the bus. Harry, Ned, and MJ are waiting at the bottom of the steps for him patiently. They all live closer to the school than he does, so they tend to wait for him in the same spot every day. A big, energetic smile lights up his face, and they all seem to brighten up a little bit. MJ even gives a little smile in return as Peter nears the group. “Hey guys.”

 

“Hey Pete, how’re you feeling today?” It’s Harry who greets him first with a calm smile.

 

“Good honestly? Better than normal.” Peter gives a little shrug and a smaller, slightly more timid smile,” How have your guy’s mornings been?”

 

They don’t treat him differently than they treat each other, but whenever he’s feeling good they all seem to feel a little bit happier. Or a little relieved, maybe a mix? He can’t tell. It’s 7:50. By 7:58 they’re all in class, and the bell is ringing two minutes later. The teacher for the class he and Ned share (Edkins or something?) is finished taking attendance at maybe 8:05, being so early in the school year makes things slower, and she’s talking about something.

 

“I’m going to pass out permission slips for the Oscorp field trip now instead of later in class just for time saving sake.” She shrugs a little nonchalantly and hands the first person in each row a set of papers to be passed back, before speaking again,” Was everyone here for the announcements about that or do I need to recap?” Peter doesn’t remember announcements for something like that, so he was either not listening or it was announced when he was gone on Wednesday. When nobody raises their hand, including Peter who really doesn’t want to draw attention to himself by doing that, she nods a little bit. “Cool, let’s get started then. We left off with significant figures and scientific notation right?” 

 

And… Peter is left clueless. Awesome. Ned taps his shoulder lightly when Edkins turns her back, and Peter leans over to listen. “She’s talking about this field trip on Monday, all of the science classes are going to Oscorp for a tour and then this lecture on education or whatever.” Peter nods a little bit and leans back into his seat when Edkins turns back towards the class, mouthing a thanks in Ned’s direction and receiving a thumbs up. 

 

He’s excited about it, but he knows that Harry isn’t the  _ biggest  _ fan of the laboratories or of his father. That should be.. Interesting. To say the least about it.

 

-

 

By 6th period he’s burning out  _ fast _ . The ample spoons he’d had this morning are thinning out substantially. His leg braces help a lot, but his hip had subluxed during warmups in 5th, and coach Moretta had refused to let him sit out. The deep pain radiating outwards from it has refused to let up, even after he iced it in the nurse’s office at the beginning of 6th. His chin is resting on one of his palms now, and he’s barely awake. English is really dragging on at this point, and his mind can think of nothing but laying down in bed surrounded by blankets and passing out for a while. 

 

His mind keeps wandering towards the subject of the field trip too. He’s not worried about getting the permission slip signed, he has all weekend to do that. It’s Harry. Peter stares quietly at the back of Harry’s head from where he sits in front of him, what does he think about this? Is he worried about maybe seeing his father during the trip, or does he not care about it at all? Peter frowns a little bit, and realizes Harry has turned around to face him. He blinks a little bit in surprise and Harry’s brow wrinkles in concern. “You good, Pete?”

 

“Oh yeah, I’m just tired and kinda spacey. Sorry for staring at you.” His smile is apologetic and small.

 

Harry smiles back at him.“It’s cool, it’s time to leave though.” He lifts up his bag a little to show that he’s all packed up and ready to go. Peter’s eyes widen marginally before he’s packing his own bag, and before long he and Harry are leaving the building. They meet up with Ned and MJ, get some deserved, caring ribbing for holding them up, and are on their respective ways home. Before long, Peter is unlocking the door and stepping into the quiet apartment he and May call home. 3:06. 

 

He slowly makes his way to his room, ditches his backpack on his desk chair and sets to taking off his braces and tape. Change into sweatpants and a t-shirt, glasses off, socks off, and pillows and blankets assorted into a comfortable nest-like formation. He’s down and out by 3:13.


	2. Splice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s laying in bed bonelessly, hot flashes coming and going and staring at the ceiling. Maybe he’ll call Harry later. He never did get to ask him about the field trip in 6th period.

Peter’s weekend consisted of lazing at home without having to wear his braces, or worry much about anything at all, and playing video games with Harry and Ned at Harry’s absolutely giant apartment. Like, this apartment was fucking  _ big,  _ big enough to hold two of Peter’s apartments and still have wiggle room. But now it was Monday, his permission slip was signed and turned in, and the anticipation for the field trip was properly built up. He and Ned are sitting on the bus with the rest of their loudly chattering classmates waiting to leave. 

 

After about 10 minutes of waiting and talking about Ned’s new Minecraft texture pack he’d gotten on Sunday (“The water looks so fucking  _ real  _ dude, oh my god.”) the bus is taking off and leaving school grounds. In the back of his head Peter is still worrying about how Harry feels about this whole thing, and also kind of wondering if he’ll even  _ see  _ Harry again today. Maybe he’s worrying for nothing. Maybe to Harry this is just another stupid tour around his father’s lab that he’s already been to, and he’ll do that kinda cute eye roll thing he does about anything related to his dad. Peter forces himself back into paying attention to what Ned is talking about; some Coalchella thing that the dude who played Carl in The Walking Dead tweeted about? 

 

“We could use my Minecraft account to be there if you wanted to- are you listening?” Ned frowns a little bit at him, and Peter’s ears feel hot. Shit, caught in the act.

 

“Oh yeah I am, when’s this whole Coalchella thing anyways?” Totally wasn’t thinking about Harry’s cute eye roll thing he does, or his stupidly long eyelashes and pretty brown eyes. Nothing like that. 

 

Must’ve been a great cover or Ned is just ignoring it, because he replies,” The 23rd of this month, something like that. I really wanna snag the merch for it when the store goes up, just to say that I have merch from the first ever Minecraft Coachella.” Peter laughs a little bit at that and nods.

 

“Yeah merch would be cool, I’ll have to chip in for some.” As he finishes that thought the bus is pulling up to Oscorp, and quietly screeching to a stop in the parking lot out front. Once the bus settles Edkins is standing up at the front and giving them her whole behaviour spiel, that Peter mostly tunes out. 

 

“We’re breaking for lunch at 11, and everyone is to stay with the group on the tour. Absolutely  _ no  _ wandering off, I want everyone on their best behaviour. After lunch the tour is going to go for another hour and listen to the lecture, and then we go back to school for the remainder of the day.” She pauses and looks over everyone in the bus, seemingly satisfied with whatever the hell she was searching for she continues on,” Alright everyone, leave the bus by your rows please.” And with that, Edkins is off of the bus and waiting outside of the open doors, letting her students decide the chaos they’re exiting the bus in. 

 

Everyone floods out of their seats, except for Ned and Peter who decide to leave last because of how Peter tends to be a slow walker. They’re both kind of sick of Flash yelling,” Hurry up Penis!” Whenever he walks behind Peter. It gets old pretty fast. After they’re off of the bus and everyone is gathered around Edkins, she takes headcount quickly and leads them into the building. A tour guide meets them in the lobby of the building and stands almost perkily, if that’s a way someone can stand, with a smile on his face. He has a few sheets of name tag stickers in his hand, with the names of everyone in the class on them. He seems to perk up even  _ more  _ when everyone’s attention is on him and the chatter has died down with some prompting from Edkins.

 

“Welcome to Oscorp everyone, my name is James and I’m going to be your tour guide today. Before we can start everything, I need to make sure everyone has their name tags. When I call your name come up and get your tag, and stick it somewhere obvious on your person such as your chest.” James gives a smile and references a clipboard he’s also holding. “Aanisah Fakhoury?” After that things just continue in the uniform tour way, everyone goes up and gets their tag, and they’re given a small lecture on the history of the company. Peter doesn’t pay that much attention overall, he’s been on one of these tours before, with Uncle Ben before… That. Ned hasn’t been to Oscorp before, so he’s paying attention. This is a sophomore exclusive trip, so most of their classmates haven’t been on this tour before. 

 

Peter is free to space out while vaguely looking at things in the rooms they visit, he follows absentmindedly at the back of the group near Edkins. He comes out of his own head when they enter a new room that’s unfamiliar to him. A room entirely full of shelf after shelf of containers with spiders inside of them. Some researchers mill around the room, but otherwise it isn’t a busy scene. James speaks up,” This room is entirely dedicated to our research of arachnid DNA and medical uses of their venom as well as some of the physical abilities they possess.” 

 

He’s too busy looking around the room to pay much attention to James, and he hears Ned say something beside him. Peter looks at Ned and blinks,” Huh?” 

 

“I said that this room is kinda fuckin’ sick, in both ways.” The shorter teen looks at Peter with some concern,” You okay dude? You’ve been really spacey today.” 

 

Peter hums a little bit, and follows Ned to look more closely at some of the containers, following the class in distributing themselves to look around the room curiously. “Yeah I’m fine, just kinda worried about how Harry feels about this whole tour thing. You know how he feels about the company and his dad and stuff.” He shrugs a little bit, and pushes his glasses up some before squinting at the fat brown spider in the box in front of him. 

 

“Eh, I’m sure he’ll be fine.” Ned shrugs too,” He’s probably just going to be bored as hell, you can ask him how it went for him in 6th if you’re really that worried about it.”

 

“Yeah I guess.” Peter frowns slightly, and moves on from the spider he was inspecting. He’s staring at a small white thing with long legs, and feels a tickle on the back of his neck. He scratches at it, and a brief burning pain flares up in the second knuckle of his ring finger. Pulling his hand back quickly, he inspects the finger and finds nothing but some slightly irritated skin.

 

“Your hand good dude?”

 

“Knuckle probably just subluxed really fast or something.” Peter makes a small, vague unknowing sound and Ned accepts it, making a vague unknowing sound too. The tour and their day carries on, they leave the room and look at some more of Oscorp’s shit. Peter forgets about the weird finger pain, but later on goes home early feeling kind of queasy. 

 

-

 

The next four days after the field trip are the worst days of Peter’s life. When he’s not burning he’s cold, and he vomits up everything he eats and drinks unless it’s water. His body aches near constantly, and he feels absolutely ravenous even though he’s nauseous. Everything feels like a fever dream for three of those days, maybe most of it is honestly. 

 

On the fourth day he feels better than before, more conscious. Things start to make sense again, but everything feels like too much. Peter is still horribly hungry, he feels like he’s starving constantly but he can’t get himself to choke anything down just yet. The lights are too bright in the rest of the apartment, so he sticks to his room with his blinds closed and his dimmest lamp on. Sheets against his skin have almost too much texture to them, as do his clothes, but at the same time it’s such an almost pleasant feeling. Almost. Things smell different, and when he tries to get out of bed all of the hairs on the back of his neck and arms stand on end before he’s lurching forward and about to fall, he catches himself.

 

Everything is just  _ weird  _ now, he’s not sure if his sense of taste is affected the same way the rest of his senses are yet. It’s the fourth day still. He’s laying in bed bonelessly, hot flashes coming and going and staring at the ceiling. Maybe he’ll call Harry later. He never did get to ask him about the field trip in 6th period.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeyyy! New chapter even tho I posted the first one literally yesterday... Anyways, finally!! The bite!! I was really excited for this even before I started writing, I really really wanted to start Peter's experience as Spider Man, and really dig into the new problems and everything that comes with it. Updates normally won't be this fast bc I'm a full time student, and that hinders me among other things, but I'll churn em out as often as I can. See y'all until next time!!  
> (Also the Coalchella thing is absolutely real and it’s happening today)  
> Tumblr: dekuflex.tumblr.com  
> Twitter: @tokodekus


	3. Starting Line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, this whole thing feels like the starting line for something.

He hadn’t called Harry that night, or the next day. He was too busy with other more demanding matter, such as the fact that he didn’t need to wear his glasses anymore. Or that for the first time in his life he could understand the phrase  _ “breathing easy”.  _ Which is kinda fuckin’ odd considering he’s asthmatic, and that he has 20/70 vision. To say he’s freaked out is a mild approximation of what he’s feeling right now. 

 

On Sunday he rolled over in bed and reached out to grab his phone to check the time and was met with a conundrum. The phone wouldn’t unstick from his hand. Specifically his palm or finger tips, and only came off after a moderate amount of waving his arm around and wheezing in panic. It dislocated most of the major joints in his arm a few times, but it got the phone to detach. Peter holds his arm close to his body and looks intensively at his fingers and palm. As he shifts his hand from side to side absolutely  _ tiny  _ barbed hairs gleam in the dim light of his room. There’s thousands of them, holy shit there’s so many. He leans closer to his hand, and slowly glances at his phone as it lights up with a Twitter notification. Maybe it’s time to call his friends. 

 

Peter picks up the phone as carefully as possible, trying not to stick to it again, and opens the app the friend group uses to talk most of the time. The server is filled with endless @’s aimed towards him. MJ has suggested he’s dead on multiple occasions, and there’s dramatic screenshots of a torchlit Minecraft funeral for Peter, made picturesque by Ned’s texture packs. He huffs out a little laugh at his changed nickname before sending a quick:

 

**legally dead ⚰** 4:19 PM

_ @ _ _ everyone  _ hey thanks for the funeral

**Tatsumaki [BOT]** 4:20 PM

@ _legally dead ⚰_ has leveled up!

**legally dead ⚰** 4:20 PM

thanks tatsu

 

-

 

Almost immediately after he’d sent the message they’d all started calling him, and he patched everyone into a group call. Now though, they sit scattered around his bedroom with him being the centerpoint of focus. They’ve all been sunken deep into a kind of uncomfortable silence before MJ breaks it with a deadpan,” So, what the fuck happened?”

 

“Yeah Pete, where have you been?” Harry asks quietly, with some amount of worry leaking into his voice. Peter hadn’t told them anything about his new abilities, or how he’s just had the worst 4 days ever. Or, anything really. Just that he needed them to come over  _ fast _ . Harry’s looking him over with concern, and Peter suddenly feels kind of self concious about the visible weight he’s lost from vomiting and not really eating for the past few days.

 

“And why aren’t you wearing your glasses, your vision fuckin’  _ sucks  _ dude.” Ned proposes the next question in the lineup, and Peter rubs the back of his neck nervously. At least he doesn’t stick to himself, that’d suck. 

 

He takes a deep, shuttering breath and curls in on himself a little uncomfortably, or as far as he can really curl in with his joints still being like.. How they’ve always been. “Uhm- so. I’ve.” He pauses to think over his answer for a second. “First off, I’ve been sick. Like, the past 4 days have been the worst 4 days I’ve ever experienced. Like, ever.” His voice cracks on the ever. “My whole body has been in pain constantly until today, I’ve been so fucking  _ hungry  _ even though I’ve been throwing up everything I eat or drink, and for some reason my senses are dialed up to 80 now-”

 

“Oh so that’s why it’s so dark in here.”

 

Peter nods when Ned interrupts him,“-Yeah. Anyways. I. I don’t know what’s going on with me. This morning my hand got stuck to my phone and that’s, really weird? And there’s little hairs all over it now, so I don’t know what the hell that’s about. And I. I know you guys probaly don’t believe me about this, but it’s so weird, and confusing, and I’m freaking out a  _ lot.  _ I’m-”

 

“Honestly I believe you.” Harry shrugs when he says it,” I have no reason to think you’re lying or making anything up.”

 

MJ nods along,” Yeah same.”

 

“You wouldn’t be freaking out this much if you were making it up.”

 

Peter blinks a few times without really being able to say anything. Wow, this is going a lot smoother than he expected it to. He startles a little when Ned leans forward towards him and asks,” If your hands stick to shit, do you think your feet would do it too? Like, do you think you can stick to walls and climb them or something?”

 

“I… Don’t know, let’s put on my braces and stuff and test it.”

 

-

 

Turns out the answer was yes. That and some other things, such as walking upside down on the ceiling, and an inordinate amount of strength, are now abilities he has. When they were inspecting his arms and hands they’d found small spinneret-like protrusions from his wrists just below his palms. They’ve all sworn to test the capabilities of  _ those  _ on Monday after school, probably in some place with a lot of space.

 

Now Peter lays on his bed and stares at his Avengers poster above his desk. For some reason, this whole thing feels like the starting line for something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter than normal chapter, just because I'm eager to get into the real story. In the past 3 chapters Peter, Harry, Ned, and MJ have all been in their freshman year but now I'm debating on timeskipping up a year from now to get to the Homecoming timeline. I'm not sure yet tho!
> 
> Also also, I'll be switching to a weekly update schedule for my own purposes and also just to make updates less sporadic. Also forces me to take more time planning each chapter and making them longer. Until next time guys, see y'all!
> 
> Tumblr: dekuflex.tumblr.com  
> Twitter: @tokodekus


	4. Hiatus Notice

So, you’re reading this fic. I’m not going to make excuses for myself or whatever, and I’m not going to be super apologetic or anything either. Long explanation short: I’m mentally ill and haven’t been functioning enough to continue writing this story for now. I haven’t been functioning enough since October 2018. It’s January 2019 currently. This story will be on hiatus for however long it takes for me to get back into writing anything more than oneshots again. I’m sorry if this is upsetting or anything like that, I’ll do my best.

Thank you for reading this far, I’ll see you again, maybe.

-Max

**Author's Note:**

> Short first chapter bc I just wanted to show what a good day for Peter is like and introduce the field trip!! The Bite Is Coming
> 
> Tumblr is dekuflex.tumblr.com  
> Twitter is @tokodekus


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